Delaware Gardening Tips from the Experts

A Rooting Interest: Local experts share gardening tips.

by Eileen Smith Dallabrida

Published: 04.19.2012

Christian Tauber picks a plump raspberry and pops it in his mouth. The berry’s lush scent and sunny sweetness transport him across the sea and back in time, to his grandfather’s garden in northern Germany.

“Every time I put a raspberry in my mouth, I am instantly in my grandfather’s backyard,” he says. “It’s the greatest thing for kids today to learn that raspberries don’t grow at Super Fresh.”

Tauber feels grounded in the garden. He is the manager and landscape designer at Old Country Gardens in North Wilmington, a calling that puts him in the fortuitous position of being surrounded by nature’s wonders at work, as well as home.

In his mind’s eye, a landscape is a living entity, with a skeleton of trees and shrubs, fleshed out with perennials and dressed up with flowers and other annuals.

“It’s a composition, with different sizes and layers of plant material,” he says. “You create highlights and contrasts with size, texture and color.”